Karl Ehrhardt died Thursday at the age of 83. He was famous for being the "sign man" at Shea Stadium from 1964 to 1981.
Ehrhardt held up custom-made signs at New York Mets home games to "vocalize" his happiness or displeasure with the team. He was awesome!
Only the Mets 1969 World Series victory left him speechless. The sign he raised high after the last out of the WS game read, "There Are No Words."
I consider myself to be an Atlanta Braves fan "my entire life," with the exception of when I lived in southern California for a few years and idolized Robin Roberts. She has nothing to do with this story, by the way...
For some odd reason, I was a Mets fan the entire time I lived in Cali, only attending Los Angeles Dodgers games when the Mets came to town. I was so die-hard with the Mets that I would turn down invitations to Disneyland & Knotts Berry Farm to stay home and tape Mets games ('tape', as in "record". With a VCR. How ghetto! I would actually tape the game as I watched it so I could watch it again later!)
I made gay-ass signs that referenced Mookie Wilson and Darryl Strawberry and took them to Dodgers home games as a 13-year-old, zit-faced kid in hopes that the Mets players would ask me to sit in the dugout with them. Why didn't someone slap me silly back then? I was obviously obsessed & livin' in a dream world.
Sign Man was way before my time as a Mets fan, but he was loved nonetheless.
In memory of Sign Man, Karl Ehrhardt...
He was probably thrilled that the Mets signed Johan Santana.
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